Shoe Rack #1: Problem with Angles

So I am attempting to make a shoe rack for my closets out of some old aspen I had laying around. I am going to make a finished set out of cedar, but I wanted to try this out from some “scrap” wood (and still have something worth using when I’m done). So I have gotten everything to the point below.

I am kinda stuck now. I could just mark everything and dowel it up and be done with it and have a level show rack, bu shoe racks have a slope to them. I calculated about 5 degrees and roughed it on the table and it seems to fit across the end pieces well. I don’t know how to make a precise jig to hold everything at that angle while I mark, dowel, and glue (AKA I need something very repeatable and stable). I am not confident enough in my skills to just draw, drill, and pray. Any tips on how to get this done?

I tried to rip a long strip at 5 degrees to rest the end piece on and it kept binding and moving my table saw blade. If this was the only solution, then my only solution is to buy a nicer saw.

1 comment so far

If I have understood your description right, you want the shelf part to slope downwards from the front to the back. A 5° slope will give you a drop of (approximately) 1” for every 12” of width of your shelf.

So the easiest (for a 12” shelf, scale up appropriately if your shelf is wider) is to cut a straight strip of wood about 1” x 1” x the length of your shelf and tape it to the top front edge of the shelf. Then turn it upside down on your assembly table, turn the legs upside down as well, bring the two parts together, mark, drill and assemble. Nothing fancy and quite repeatable.

Edit: Of course, doing it as above has the back corner of the shelf level with the top of the legs. If you want it lower, you could tape a strip to both the front and back edges, just so long as the front strip is 1” higher than the back. Better yet, this is when you could make a jig something like this …

You can also add extra stops that position the leg accurately each time.

-- I may have lost my marbles, but I still have my love of woodworking